


The Blessing of the Goddess

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aromantic, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Gen, Goddesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 01:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20106667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: As a child Marta had always wondered why her friends made such a fuss about finding their one true love, as though it were somehow better than simply having friends and being happy. Worried that she might be missing something she builds a shrine to the Goddess of Love to get an answer.





	The Blessing of the Goddess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosemarycat5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosemarycat5/gifts).

Marta always had to hide a smile when she saw the way people would look at the small shrine she kept to Ettis in the corner of her kitchen. They couldn’t see that, after all these years, she was happy living alone in her little house on the edge of the woods, away from the rest of the village. They would look at the shrine to the Goddess of Love and then their gaze would dart elsewhere. She knew what their unasked question was, how she remained hopeful after all these years when her devotion hadn’t paid off and her prayers remained unanswered, which went to show what they knew.

She may have lived alone, but she was far from lonely, going to town when the desire to spend time with other people struck her. Her garden was able to provide her with most of what she needed other than conversation, and what it didn’t provide she was able to trade the herbs she grew and gathered from the woods for. She might not have been as capable an herbalist as her father had been, but she was fearless enough that going into the woods wasn’t a problem.

In town she had enough friends that she was able to keep up on the local gossip, what people were saying about her, who felt sorry for her and why, and she took it all in good humor, because it was funny, how people assumed that everyone else wanted the same kind of happiness they had rather than their own.

It was true that she had kept a shrine to Ettis ever since she was young, praying as devoutly as any temple maid, but not for a vision of her destined love or help winning them over as most did. Originally she had simply wanted to ask the Goddess a question, was love necessary for her to be happy?

Many of her friends seemed to believe that was the case, though her parents reassured her that was not necessarily true. Yet when she had been young her friends had spoken in hushed voices of how dreadful it would be to end up some lonely old spinster.

Unlike most, save for the temple maids, she received a direct answer. The Goddess came to her in her dreams one night, even more radiantly beautiful than the stories told. Ettis smiled at her with such kindness and understanding that in that instant Marta wondered if she should leave her home and devote herself at a temple.

“You are a curious young woman Marta,” was what Ettis had said to her, in a voice every bit as beautiful as the rest of her, “And your question is thoroughly outside my realm, though it is one you can answer yourself.”

After such a vision it went without saying that she kept the shrine, even though many seemed to abandon their devotions to the Goddess after they received their answer.

Though at the time she hardly considered the vision an answer, after all, how could she answer a question that a goddess couldn’t?

She had prayed and worried and finally asked her mother, who she regarded as more knowledgeable than most other adults she knew. The answer her mother gave was far too complex for her liking, telling her that happiness was about finding the good in any situation you found yourself in, focusing on the small things that were important rather than the large things that weren’t and knowing how to be content with what the gods saw fit to give.

It was an answer, she supposed, but not to her question, so she once again turned to Ettis, partially because she hoped the Goddess would see fit to elaborate and partially because she wondered if she would be so lucky twice.

It was many months before Ettis visited her again.

This time the Goddess greeted her with an apology, explaining how she would have come sooner, but her duties kept her so busy and the faithful were so many that some prayers took longer to answer than others.

Having seen the Goddess once already Marta was able to see more of her this time, how her skin, though flawless, wasn’t fair as it was in so many depictions, she was as tanned as and farmer laboring in the fields, and through she carried herself with dignity, it was clear that she was as tired as it was possible for a goddess to be. For the first time Marta considered how much the Goddess had to do, overseeing the meetings of all lovers, guiding people to and away from each other so they might find the one that they were meant to be with and constantly protecting newlyweds from the evil eye. Being the Goddess of Love was an important task and Marta immediately felt bad for drawing her away from it.

As though hearing her thoughts Ettis laughed.

“I wouldn’t do anything if I didn’t enjoy it,” she reassured, “And talking to you is a rare pleasure, though not as rare as you might think.”

Later, when she took the time to consider Ettis’ comment she took reassurance from it, but at that moment Marta could only think of one question, “Are you happy?”

For Ettis’ title wasn’t simply Goddess of Love, she was known as the Unfettered. The title was not in reference to the overwhelming power of her blessings, but because of the story of how she fled on the day she was to be wed to Karlis, God of the Wild Places, after he grew smitten with her. She managed to escape the unwanted coupling by abandoning any chance of finding a husband of her own and instead giving mortals and the rest of the gods the blessing she could have kept for herself.

It was both a cautionary tale and a testament to Ettis’ willfulness.

The answer Ettis gave, a single word, was the greatest reassurance Marta could have hoped for.

“Very.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this lines up with what you wanted. I'll admit that your prompt got me wondering how it would work to be aromantic in a fantasy setting where there was such a thing as a goddess of love. Then I started thinking, what if the goddess herself was aromantic and, in addition to making sure that lovers met, she also looked out for people like herself, making sure that they were happy.


End file.
